Lesson 11 Reflection

Reflection for Blog

Generally, OPACs are rated according to the following:

• Flexibility and power of the program and its ability to provide multiple functions;
• Ease of use for teacher-librarians, library technicians, students, teachers, parents etc.;
• Cost-effectiveness of the original price and ongoing maintenance;
• The visual appeal of all of the on-line components. 

**Please post your thoughts in your blog about the following**: The degree to which a library catalogue can be consulted easily by teachers and students is of great significance if teacher-librarians wish to encourage user-independence. A flexible catalogue will allow broader use of the school library.

Yes, I agree with this statement. Our school uses L4U. Because of the recataloging project, it was not until very recently that I looked into the OPAC and how the library catalog actually works. I now have 5000 resources in the catalog, so it is useable, though limited because the complete collection is not cataloged. 

Previously (before the crash/previous library tech person), the library catalog was never used by staff or students. There was no attempt made to train anyone, or to make the OPAC a user friendly/independent user resource. Now it is my job. First, I need to train the teachers. I have offered to show teachers how to use the catalog, but have had no takers. I guess I provide such good service that they don't really need to do self-serve! Once the teachers are trained, however, then I need to work with them to start teaching the students how to use the catalog. This would mean integrating classroom projects and needs with selecting books from the library. Because there was no previous history of this happening with the library, there is no tradition of good library use. Again, it is me who has to change all this. Slowly, I have been making changes to how the library is perceived and used, and slowly, I will create a complete culture of library use.